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Ask HN: Why do interviewers not give you feedback upon rejection?

29 pointskapilkaisare50 comments

Why do interviewers end most rejection rounds with a "You're not a fit for what we're looking for" when they could be giving you constructive feedback instead?

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I'm tempted to just tell you to rent the classic Dustin Hoffman movie Tootsie and watch the first few minutes.

The basic reason why it is polite to give people flat, euphemistic turndowns -- not just at the end of interviews, but in lots of breakup situations, including exit interviews, declining of contracts, and breakups with SOs -- is that you don't want to prolong the agony or send mixed signals. You don't want to appear to be negotiating. You don't want to appear to be trying to cause excessive pain. You certainly don't want to provoke the person to burst into tears, physically attack you, stalk you for weeks, months, or years, or file a lawsuit.

You also don't want to tell a person that they're hopeless and will never succeed in the industry and then wake up to find out that they're Steve Jobs. That happens. It happens all the time. Interviewing is a mistake-prone, statistical process and decisions are based on hunches that cannot be explained, only rationalized, even to oneself.

There is a reason why constructive feedback is so valuable. People won't give it to you up front. I myself am much more direct online than in person -- in person I'm a hopeless softie, until you get me into an engineering situation or otherwise give me hints that you can take it. Not everyone has the emotional stamina to withstand the full force of MIT-style, anonymous-peer-review style power criticism.

Also, interviewing is a weeding-out process. If they tell you what you did wrong, then you (and anyone else you share that information with) will become better at gaming that process. This makes it harder for them to tell whether they have a good candidate or someone who can game the system well.

A good interview process should be resistant to gaming. For instance, multiple interviews. Multiple people doing the interviewing. Asking the candidate to demonstrate a capacity to do the work.

But, let's say the candidate does successfully game the interview and gets hired. Your company should absolutely use the first N-days of a new hire to check fit. Many I've seen explicitly say the first three or six months is a probationary period. The problem is when companies aren't honest with themselves about making a bad hire (capability or fit) and letting the new hire go.

Particularly for internal job candidates, I highly recommend being direct and saying, "Here's where you're short. Here's what you can work on over the next year or so to get into a better position. It's not a guarantee, but you'll be better prepared." Give them homework.

If a candidate is really and truly interested, they'll follow through on the advice and follow-up on it. That gives you a better candidate to look at for your next req.

Yes. Though often you can just ask for some feedback off-the-record.

At a company I've worked at we didn't do it because it was an opportunity to be sued. You have to word it very carefully or it could be considered discrimination. Easier just to avoid the risk altogether.

I spent > 2 years of my life doing a face-to-face technical interview (ramping up the staff for a prior startup) literally every day. I've also been a hiring manager for a large tech company. I've given a lot of interviews.

The problem with interviewing is simple: all you can determine during an interview is whether the person is good at interviews.

That skill is not necessarily a good indication of doing well at any given job (especially with software engineering). The "constructive feedback" would be at best, superficial, but more likely, it would be based on the "blink response" of how the interviewer perceived you as you walked through the door -- so it's not only dubiously-based advice, it's advice that most people find hard to deliver.

The large tech company also explicitly told managers not give negative feedback due to legal reasons.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet.

A lot of hiring decisions come down to personality fit and likability, especially if you're hiring for a small team. Telling someone that you just don't like them is a pretty difficult thing to do for most people.

I know that I couldn't say it and have personally fallen back on the "we got a lot of good applicants and it was a tough decision" non-answer.

Because it does not benefit them in the short run and to eliminate the possibility of saying something that could land them in legal trouble.

the possibility of saying something that could land them in legal trouble When I worked for Kaplan (a subsidiary of the Washington Post), we were trained to not give any feedback after interviews or teacher auditions specifically for this reason. There was a situation where a potential teacher was not accepted after an audition and he asked why. A Kaplan representative told him that it was because he had a thick accent and that students would have trouble understanding him when he spoke. He filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination and in the end Kaplan settled out of court. Pretty much any reason you give for not hiring someone could be interpreted as discrimination of some kind. It may not be enough to win a lawsuit, but it is enough to force you to settle to avoid the bad PR.

And, sadly, that is actually a good reason not to hire someone to teach a class. As many unfortunate students can attest.

I had a TA once who had an incomprehensible accent. When people complained, some honcho from the department came to class and berated everyone for complaining because she had passed all the qualification tests to lecture in English, despite the fact that actual students couldn't understand her.

This was in the business department. Apparently, the people who are supposed to be teaching how to run a business valued their own a priori qualification tests over the experiences of actual customers[1]. While the situation pissed me off even then, the irony did not occur to me until years later.

[1] Academics don't like the implication that students are customers, but in this case the analogy holds.

And those academics are right. Let me sidetrack for a bit, because this is an important point, that not everybody thinks of:

If students had to pay the actual cost of their education, it'd be much higher, even in Ivy League schools. Universities complement the tuition fees by getting public funding.

And (in theory, at least) tax money should be given for a good reason. The public as a whole does not care about the personal benefits that some would get by gaining a degree. That's the private interest of those people, and we're talking public good here: it should help all.

Tax money is given to universities so they would create inventions and innovations in science and art, which are in the public interest. And to create those we need well-educated people to invent and innovate.

Thus it's not the students buying education. That's a byproduct, and they're not the customer, just a beneficiary. It's the public buying educated people.

Of course, this is all pinko-think, and it's true that some academics are just old farts who keep wondering how dare those students interrupt the academics very important nap time, and who thought of letting students in campus anyway?

Maybe that is where the analogy breaks down. But the argument is misused a lot to imply that the desires and needs of students are irrelevant, and that students' complaints are without merit, even if they can't understand their TA.

> If students had to pay the actual cost of their education, it'd be much higher, even in Ivy League schools.

That seems really unlikely. The fact that it's expensive to provide this exact bundle of services doesn't mean that's what would get provided without the subsidy. What's more likely is that the services that mean the least to the customers would get cut until the tuition was more reasonable. Without tax funding you'd get schools that were focused primarily on teaching. Like high school, but with more accomplished teachers.

And then we won't have research. So the material taught will stagnate, just like in high schools. If we treat students as customers, then they want the best -- so to improve, the student-oriented university would hire teachers that are also great researchers, so they'd have something new to teach, that isn't taught by the competition. And that research is costly; and we come full circle to the research-oriented universities.

How much does an undergraduate really learn that's from the latest research?

Not too much (and that's particularly true if you look at the older engineering disciplines.) The goal of an undergraduate education would be to learn how to learn.

This may be all true. But then the public as a customer doesn't get what it's trying to buy.

If the students don't understand, how can they become educated?

Never said the public is getting his money worth.

I wish the full article were freely available, but there are some studies such as this one that suggest that the situation is not quite so cut-and-dry:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...

The basic result is that the belief that foreigners are hard to understand leads students to perceive them as poor lecturers. For example, if you play the same recorded lecture to a group of students, their perception of how easy it was to understand is affected by whether you project an image of a Caucasian or Indian/Chinese 'lecturer' at the front of the room.

I always wondered if a deaf or mute person could challenge the same rules that allowed incomprehensible people to lecture.

This.

Also, larger companies heavily document all of the legal, objective elements of the decision not to hire you and then retain them for eternity. Just in case you decide to come back and sue them later for something they didn't even say, since there are many of these cases that are just attempts to extort an out of court settlement.

It's also easier. When you try to be nice and offer constructive criticism/reasons why you said no, the other party can oftentimes get worked up and it becomes a much more stressful situation than it ought to be.

They don't have the time, they don't want lawsuits, they can't tell you that they ended up hiring Jeff the tax guy's cousin because many of the staff already knew him and he's a good dude as well as a good coder...etc.

In my experience almost all candidates can figure out for themselves why they didn't get the job. Some of that is from giving plussed/non-plussed signals during the interview but mostly people know when they don't know the answer to something.

The few people who have ever asked me for feedback were simultaneously the least qualified and most confident candidates people I've met. No matter the answer the next step always seems to be pissed off replies, demands for a second chance or thinly veiled threats. I've stopped giving feedback because there's just no value in spending my time on it and the people who want it don't seem equip to use it.

I've found that when you're rejected, it's okay to write back asking for specific guidance as to how you might improve for next time. I've gotten valuable insight > 50% of the time this way.

I often ask for feedback during the interview.

If I'm interested in a position, I'll typically ask the hiring manager what reservations or concerns she may have about hiring me. Factual errors aside I make it a point not to debate those concerns at the time (and I make it clear up front that I'm not going to try to talk them out of their concerns), but I've found:

A) You typically get fairly honest answers this way (in part because the question catches the interviewer off-guard, which is generally a good way to get an honest response).

B) The feedback is useful for adapting your presentation and pitch at another firm.

and

C) If you get the job this is very useful information to have. It tells you what your new boss views as important and what skills she thinks you are lacking, often with a candor you won't get if you ask the same question on your first day on the job.

EDIT/PS: I'm trying to think how I'd react to this sitting on the other side of the desk. I've done a lot of interviews but I don't think anyone has ever asked me this question. I certainly give vague non-answers when I'm rejecting a candidate after the fact (typically something like "we've found someone who is a better match...") but if I was asked in the interview I'd probably give an honest answer but it would be focused around the work instead of the candidate, which probably makes it easier to deliver.

I like this. Ask what you can improve, not what you did wrong. You won't stress the interviewer as much.

And the only downside is, getting a polite answer a la "Sorry, we can't give you feedback." So, always ask for feedback.

There are times when I've really, REALLY wanted to be able to give that feedback -- usually when a candidate came in second in a close race and I wanted them to know they did really well, but there's been other times when I thought specific feedback would really help someone (I interview a lot of fresh college graduates) -- but HR has told me every time not to do it, not even if they review the language first.

What's funny is the one time I got such feedback myself I thought it was because the company I interviewed with did it because they were paranoid I would sue: About 12 years ago I interviewed when I was 4+ months visibly pregnant (and I openly talked about it too -- I don't hide anything), and afterward the person I interviewed with sent me an extremely nice note that they liked me at lot, but they had to go with the more qualified candidate, although if she didn't work out, they'd hire me. I blew the letter off as them being paranoid about getting sued, but a few weeks later I got the call -- the other person didn't work out and I was hired. Go figure.

I've done a lot of interviews and the reasons are:

1. They dont want to hurt the interviewees feelings.

2. They want the interviewee to feel good about the company even if they didnt get the job. (Marketing?)

3. There might be legal reasons.

But one thing I advise now is to ALWAYS ask for feedback. You can do this by getting an interviewers email during the interview and emailing them after. Something of the form:

---------------

Hi,

Thank you very much for taking the time for interviewing me yesterday. I was notified that I wasnt a fit by HR.

I was wondering if you could let me know: 1. Which questions I got wrong in the interview and what answers you were looking for? 2. What areas you feel I need to work on? (ie an open ended question which lets them give you any type of feedback)

Regards,

---------------

Asking for feedback is HARD. But nothing brings out more respect in me than someone who wants to know why they failed and who takes steps to fix those issues in the future.

Usually, the number of rejects are much much more than the accepted. Time is a big issue.

Take YC. 1000 apply; 40 get in. How long would it take to individually let the 960 that didn't get it why they couldn't get it?

It's not a perfect system...but I don't see how that would change given that it's about time.

From experience searching for jobs in the last year it seems to be exceptionally rare to get any sort of feedback after an interview - constructive or otherwise.

My guess is that this reticence is mainly due to the laws surrounding employment, since it costs practically nothing to send a brief email. If anything which was written as part of a response could be construed as being racist/sexist/etc then in theory the company could face lawsuits. Also in the current economic situation some people might react badly to a negative response, especially if they have made exceptional efforts to get to the stage of having an interview.

Another reason is that you get into an arguing match.

Interviewer: "I don't think you have the skills for the job." Interviewee: "Sure I do! Etc."

Why would they? There is literally no benefit to interviewers to do so -- they've already rejected you, so improving your performance won't help their company, and it could help their competitor that does hire you. It could cause problems ("would you have considered my interview more impressive if I was race/gender/nationality/height X? Time to lawyer up").

Interviewers don't give most candidates tangible feedback/criticism because the vast majority do not want it.

People who just bombed an interview usually know it, and aren't in a place to receive constructive feedback.

The rare few who handle that well should explicitly ask for feedback or critique.

I always give this when asked, but never offer it unasked.

One time, I got a call from a hiring person at a company telling me that I wasn't selected for a specific job I had wanted. I turned around and asked him why and asked a few feedback questions, and the guy ended up changing his mind and extending me an offer. So at least from my experience, it's always good to ask for feedback on how you did.

How valuable would the answer be?

Most interviews come down to how much the interviewers liked you and whether your bearing in the interview matched the company's image of itself. They might come up with a variety of justifications if you pressed them, but it's never going to be the truth: they just liked the other guy more.

That is the truth that is often overlooked.

Feedback is not entirely useless, but good managers know that how useful a person ends up being, is not a function of his knowledge at the time of the interview. And that is true even for highly skilled professions like programming.

Performance/productivity is dominated by human factors, psychological factors, office environment, team synergy etc etc.

Even when I do technical interviews, people assume I am interested in getting the right answers out of them. In truth, while I am somewhat interested in what answer they give, I mostly watch _how_ they answer the questions.

It's also the point that it's easier and safer for a company to say 'no' to hiring someone than to say yes, especially if there's any doubt what so ever in the candidate's abilities. This is true for the financial and time cost, as well as the resulting lost productivity and chaos created when having to hire, fire, and find a replacement.

Therefore given how "picky" companies have to be in hiring someone, they often have an order of magnitude more people to say no to than yes, and the earlier in the process you go the more orders of magnitude of "no" they have to reply with.

Thus it makes sense for them to only provide feedback if someone requests it explicitly, and because it also shows them that you are still interested and put some extra effort into the process.

The real answer might be because very few applicants can take it gracefully.

Most interviewers don't have wear poker faces when they're not discussing salary. You can often tell by their response if they liked or disliked your answer.

Most good interviewers also have a list of questions they formulate based on what they think might be your potential weaknesses to assess whether they are a real liability or not.

So in a nutshell, if you pay attention to the verbal and non-verbal cues during the interview, you probably don't need to ask for feedback.

This is a good point: although it does depend on the interviewer, I know I personally am horrible at not showing what I think when I'm talking to someone (esp. as I'll usually ask a follow-up question to an answer I don't like, just to make sure they really are saying what I think they're saying). And if someone can't figure it out from there where they got it wrong, maybe they don't have the interpersonal skills we'd want in the first place...

Their reasons aside, if you ask, you can usually get it.

I usually gave an indirect answer when interviewees asked. For example, when hiring part-time employees, most of whom were current college students, all I really cared about was their ability to show up on time, follow directions, and be familiar with standard business practices. So anyone who showed up late to the interview, wore inappropriate clothing for a business setting, answered cell phones during the interview, etc. was cut. If someone asked why I would usually frame it as "I can't discuss the decision to hire or not hire you specifically, but generally companies look for candidates who show up on time to an interview, dress appropriately, and don't answer phones, etc."

Gosh, people must be bad at interviewing...turning up in business attire (no matter the company culture), turning your mobile off and arriving (reasonably) early are fundamentals.

I've never had a problem once getting to the interview stage and have been quite proud that I tend to be seen as valuable, but if thats the competition, I'm less impressed with myself...

We once (8 years ago?) had a woman pull a beeper out of her bra in the middle of an interview. And that was not, by far, the weirdest interview.

Alternatively, if you ask you might get a comforting lie. "We were really looking for someone who had more experience with specific skillset X" rather than "We hated you, we think you suck, and we all laughed behind your back after you left".

Of course, a comforting lie might be what you actually want.

Time, and they don't owe you one.

Time.

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